Bagged and Tagged
by Gnorcteen
Summary: Rouge is kidnapped after yet another failed attempt at the Master Emerald. Knuckles reluctantly goes on a quest to save her from being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Rated T just in case. Knuxouge One Shot


**Bagged and Tagged**

On a warm and cloudy night, Rouge was flying back to her home after a failed attempt at stealing the Master Emerald. "Man, Knuckie just won't give up." she said with a smirk as she was just about to land. However, when she arrived at her doorstep, she saw a dark figure leaning against her locked door. "Alright, who the heck are you?" she asked. The figure didn't verbally respond, but instead pulled out what looked like a gun. Right before Rouge could do anything, the trigger was pulled, and a dart landed on her upper right arm. "What did you just do?" shouted Rouge, but the figure did not respond. She then became drowsy, and she said, "What did you… what did you… what did-" and in no time, she was asleep. The figure then took two pairs of hand cuffs, and strapped one on each of her wrists. He then pulled out, from a nearby tree, a cage that was about half-taller than Rouge. He strapped the other ends of the cuffs to each side of the cage, and muttered "A rare specimen indeed. This will make me a fortune." in a slightly high and reverberated voice. He shut the cage, and attached it to his motorcycle. However, when he started it, the wheels turned flat, and began to make him hover above the ground. He then rode his hover-cycle northwards to an unknown location. Meanwhile, a nearby blue hedgehog was relaxing in a tree, and noticed this. He looked closely at the cage, and muttered to himself, "Rouge?" He then flipped out of the tree, and sped towards the cycle. "Stop!" shouted Sonic. The figure looked behind, and saw Sonic speeding towards him. The figure then pressed a button, and an oil slick was laid behind him, slipping up the blue hedgehog. The figure then said, "No one will interfere with this auction, not even you, you blue rat!" He then set his vehicle on a higher speed, and ditched Sonic completely.  
"This ain't good!" exclaimed Sonic. He then got out of the slick and sped back to tell someone about this. After about two minutes of running, he ended up at the Master Emerald shrine, home of Knuckles the Echidna. Sonic ascended the staircase, and found the red roughneck asleep on the job, as usual. "Knuckles!" Sonic shouted in his ear, making the Echidna fill with rage. "What did you do that for?" asked Knuckles with fury.  
"Some moron just kidnapped Rouge! He had her cuffed in a cage, and drove off with her on his hover car-cycle thing!" replied Sonic.  
Knuckles smirked and replied, "Tch, serves the Bat Girl right for always 'Snoopingas' usual. Why should I help her?"

Sonic responded, "Well, I just thought that you would like to play the hero and save your girlfriend and all."

Knuckles was red in the face and protested, "Hey, Rouge is not my girlfriend! How could you think something like that?"

"Sheesh, sorry." said Sonic.  
"Knuckles closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "Alright, I'll find her."  
"Told ya, you like her!" said Sonic with a grin.  
Knuckles said nothing of the embarrassing subject then said, "You think you could watch the Master Emerald while I'm gone?"  
"You can count on me… 'Lover Boy!'" Sonic said with a smirk. Knuckles grumbled then left the shrine.

After a decent half-hour of walking, Knuckles stumbled upon the oil slick Sonic had tripped in. Remembering Sonic's oily coverings on his body, he began to follow it, hoping to find the source, which would undoubtedly be Rouge's kidnapper.

Two hours had passed, and Knuckles was still following the trail, when all of a sudden, he came to a cliff where the oil had stopped running. He looked down, and about thirty feet below, there was a theater-esque area set up with six logs arranged in a 2x3 fashion, and a stage with cages behind it. On the first log was the only audience made up of three people. One was a muscle-bound African-American chef with a cleaver, small white hat, a white and stained apron, and a yellow shirt. Another was a man in a complete safari getup with a twin-barreled gun. The last man was another brawny man in a red tuxedo, brown pants, and green metal jaws. Knuckles was at unease with the image, but things got worse when the figure Sonic had described was there. He had a black shirt covered in weapons, and wore a long tan trench coat. He had dark brown pants, grey boots, mechanized gauntlets around his wrists, and a large black floppy hat. To finish things off, he had unnaturally blue skin, solid red eyes, and two tubes connected to his face cheeks. The figure then spoke, "Greetings my subordinates, my name is Cad Bane ((You might know him)), and welcome to our monthly auction of rare and valuable species.  
"Blah, blah, blah! Why should we even be here, Bane? You never have any good animals on ya! Why do you think there are only three of us here?" exclaimed the chef.  
"A better question is, why are you here if you think this is bull crap?" asked Bane.  
The chef responded, "I'm only here to bid on weird animals to cook for a bunch of spoiled teens who are competing in a game show."  
"Understandable, now, any more questions?" asked Bane to the small audience.  
The safari hunter raised his hand, and in a British accent he asked, "Do you actually have any new species for us today? If not, I can take my business elsewhere."

Bane replied, "As a matter of fact, I have one of the rarest species that is nearly, in no way, native to this land. In fact, it is so rare, it is our only item to bid on tonight."

"Oh, well in that case." said the hunter, lowering his hand back to his gun.

Bane then continued, "Anyways, tonight, like I said we only have one thing to bid on. In fact, I had just captured it tonight. A rare species to this area indeed, I give you…" Bane pulled up a cage from behind the stage, covered in a blanket. "… the rare White Mobian Bat!" He lifted the sheet, and Knuckles saw her. Rouge was in the cage, wide awake and trying to escape. No sound was coming from her as her mouth was taped shut. The crowd swooned over the prize that was on stage, and then Bane said, "Let us start the bidding at $200,000!" The chef raised his sign, signaling his agreement. "Alright, how about $250,000!" The metal-jawed man raised his sign, licking his steel lips. "$300,000!" Both the chef and hunter raised their signs, as they glared at eachother.

While the confusion was going on, Knuckles slid down the cliff slope to behind the stage. "$400,000!" shouted Bane, not noticing Knuckles. The echidna began nudging the cage towards him a small bit for every price that was called out. By the time Bane had reached $2,000,000, Knuckles had slowly lowered the cage down to his level. Rouge was thankful for this, but she couldn't get out of the cuffs. When the echidna tried to break the cuffs, Cad bane had shouted, "Sold! To the chef with a grudge against teens!" and when Bane reached for the caged, he noticed it was gone. He looked towards the cliff, and noticed Knuckles running with the cage above him. "Stop, thief!" shouted the chef.

"I have not lost a sale yet. I will not start now!" exclaimed Bane. He then got on his cycle, and drove towards Knuckles. After a few seconds, the blue man had reached the Echidna. He pulled out a heat phazer and said, "I'll give you to the count of 'Q' to release my prize!" Knuckles didn't know what to do. The bidders were on his tail, and Bane was already blocking his only exit. Bane then started counting, "1… 2… 4… 110… 87… 69… Pickle… Potato… Cheerio…" Knuckles couldn't stand his counting, but then got an idea and then shouted, "Q!" Bane took this as a challenge, and shot the phazer. Knuckles maneuvered the cage so that the beam hit both of Rouge's cuff chains. She then leapt out, tore the tape off of her muzzle, and said, "Thanks for the help, 'Bad Cane!'" Cad Bane was furious. He reached for his phazer again, and before he could, Knuckles did a swift punch to the head of the bounty hunter. Bane was easily knocked out, due to his frail body.

The bidders were almost within reach of the two, when Rouge asked, "Need a lift?"

"Would you, even after the way I treated you?" asked Knuckles.

"Well, are you in or not?" asked the bat. Knuckles nodded, and Rouge carried him over the cliff, leaving the bidders to trip over Bane.

After about an hour flight, the two landed at Knuckles' shrine, where Sonic was relaxing. Knuckles smirked, and shouted in the hedgehog's ear, "Sonic!" Sonic leapt with fright, rubbing his ear. He then asked, "Why'd you do that?"

"Payback!" replied the echidna.

"Well, you have Rouge, Knux. I'm out of here!" said Sonic, and he dashed away, leaving behind the bat and echidna.

The sun began to rise, the Master Emerald shining with its refractive properties. Rouge looked at Knuckles and said, "Thanks, Knuckie."

Knuckles' face turned red and said, "Yeah, just don't tell anyone I saved your butt from being sold." Rouge grabbed Knuckles, and kissed him. Knuckles didn't fight it, though, he just went with it. When he was released, Rouge said, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I'm gonna tell everyone!" She then winked and flew away, leaving the echidna to his business. Red in the face, Knuckles muttered, "Strangely, I'm okay with that."

**Author's Comment(s):**

**Okay, so you know Cad Bane from the Star Wars series was in here, but there were two other characters from different cartoons in here. Just thought I'd let you know. Hope ya'll enjoyed it.**

_**END!**_


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